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> In terms of high-quality art, the Picasso is artificially scarce in the sense that there are reproductions so high-quality that only experts can tell the orig

> In terms of high-quality art, the Picasso is artificially scarce in the sense that there are reproductions so high-quality that only experts can tell the original apart from the reproduction. Except that those are also scarce because they take the labor of expert hands to make too. People actually would pay money for known forgeries because of it. Absent copyright law and a desire to fund the artist, no one would pay for digital art because copies are as close to free as makes no difference.

selestify 5y ago
Sure, but we were talking about spending money on NFTs versus spend it on (original) Picassos. Now you're talking about spending money copying a Picasso versus (not) spending money copying the digital artwork that an NFT was minted for, which is distinct from the NFT itself and worth approximately zero, as you say.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  That's a distinction without a difference. I'm saying the forged art is valuable because there is a cost to produce it, and the JPG isn't because there effectively isn't a cost to produce it. The NFT took work to produce, sure, but it's just a number with some mathematical relationship to other numbers and means absolutely nothing without other systems agreeing that it means something. It creates work to be done where none needs to be done solely for the purpose of trying to fit a square peg (post-scarcity information) into a round hole (scarcity-based markets).
  - selestify 5y ago
    > That's a distinction without a difference. That's where you're mistaken. An NFT is distinct from the work that the NFT is tied to, which might not necessarily be digital. You can copy a Picasso, but no matter how good your copy is, you can't copy the "original" quality of a Picasso. That's all an NFT is, representing the "originaL" quality of something. The worth (or lack thereof) of copies is completely irrelevant.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      > An NFT is distinct from the work that the NFT is tied to, which might not necessarily be digital. Yep. Which raises the question: what exactly does the NFT provide? Is the work it points to in any way lesser through its absence? If no, then why does the NFT exist? > You can copy a Picasso, but no matter how good your copy is, you can't copy the "original" quality of a Picasso. There's a long philosophical argument to be made here involving the ship of Theseus, the teletransportation paradox, and frankly thousands of years of philosophy of identity. Let me attempt a short version: if you have two identical paintings, and lack external information as to their origin, can not either one (or both) be said to be the 'true' painting? If so, then what value is there in the information that 'proves' one is the 'original'? The origin-information, an NFT in this case, is a construction, an arbitrary assurance. What value has an NFT that points at nothing? > The worth (or lack thereof) of copies is completely irrelevant. I think we agree about what NFT's are, so the only real disagreement is about their value. Precisely because of the point above, I think we would both agree that their value is completely divorced from the value of what they point to, right? So the NFT's value must stand on its own without regard to the work it points to, right? Therefore, saying it represents the 'originalness' of a work cannot be where its value comes from because that is a derivation of value from the value of the work. I assert that the value of an NFT is effectively 0. Anyone can make any NFT they want, and it might be unique, but uniqueness is not inherently valuable. Here's a UUID v4: 6dee29bc-8798-4560-ba13-de94bac69333. I generated it just now and it is the first and theoretically only time that UUID will ever be generated. Since I have generated this UUID, I have gone ahead and signed it with a private key and thus claim ownership of it. Here's a pastebin to the public key: https://pastebin.com/ddVJxvck https://pastebin.com/ddVJxvck and the signed UUID: https://pastebin.com/0MweD9qN https://pastebin.com/0MweD9qN. This is effectively an NFT. How much would you like to pay me to sign a certificate of ownership transfer to you? Summing all up: The work that went into the creation of a thing is all that has value. NFTs can be created for basically free by literally anyone who wants to and therefore they have no value. Claims that an NFTs value comes from it pointing to something are bunk as we both agree the value of what it points to is irrelevant.
      - selestify 5y ago

selestify 5y ago

Sure, but we were talking about spending money on NFTs versus spend it on (original) Picassos. Now you're talking about spending money copying a Picasso versus (not) spending money copying the digital artwork that an NFT was minted for, which is distinct from the NFT itself and worth approximately zero, as you say.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
That's a distinction without a difference. I'm saying the forged art is valuable because there is a cost to produce it, and the JPG isn't because there effectively isn't a cost to produce it. The NFT took work to produce, sure, but it's just a number with some mathematical relationship to other numbers and means absolutely nothing without other systems agreeing that it means something. It creates work to be done where none needs to be done solely for the purpose of trying to fit a square peg (post-scarcity information) into a round hole (scarcity-based markets).
- selestify 5y ago
  > That's a distinction without a difference. That's where you're mistaken. An NFT is distinct from the work that the NFT is tied to, which might not necessarily be digital. You can copy a Picasso, but no matter how good your copy is, you can't copy the "original" quality of a Picasso. That's all an NFT is, representing the "originaL" quality of something. The worth (or lack thereof) of copies is completely irrelevant.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    > An NFT is distinct from the work that the NFT is tied to, which might not necessarily be digital. Yep. Which raises the question: what exactly does the NFT provide? Is the work it points to in any way lesser through its absence? If no, then why does the NFT exist? > You can copy a Picasso, but no matter how good your copy is, you can't copy the "original" quality of a Picasso. There's a long philosophical argument to be made here involving the ship of Theseus, the teletransportation paradox, and frankly thousands of years of philosophy of identity. Let me attempt a short version: if you have two identical paintings, and lack external information as to their origin, can not either one (or both) be said to be the 'true' painting? If so, then what value is there in the information that 'proves' one is the 'original'? The origin-information, an NFT in this case, is a construction, an arbitrary assurance. What value has an NFT that points at nothing? > The worth (or lack thereof) of copies is completely irrelevant. I think we agree about what NFT's are, so the only real disagreement is about their value. Precisely because of the point above, I think we would both agree that their value is completely divorced from the value of what they point to, right? So the NFT's value must stand on its own without regard to the work it points to, right? Therefore, saying it represents the 'originalness' of a work cannot be where its value comes from because that is a derivation of value from the value of the work. I assert that the value of an NFT is effectively 0. Anyone can make any NFT they want, and it might be unique, but uniqueness is not inherently valuable. Here's a UUID v4: 6dee29bc-8798-4560-ba13-de94bac69333. I generated it just now and it is the first and theoretically only time that UUID will ever be generated. Since I have generated this UUID, I have gone ahead and signed it with a private key and thus claim ownership of it. Here's a pastebin to the public key: https://pastebin.com/ddVJxvck https://pastebin.com/ddVJxvck and the signed UUID: https://pastebin.com/0MweD9qN https://pastebin.com/0MweD9qN. This is effectively an NFT. How much would you like to pay me to sign a certificate of ownership transfer to you? Summing all up: The work that went into the creation of a thing is all that has value. NFTs can be created for basically free by literally anyone who wants to and therefore they have no value. Claims that an NFTs value comes from it pointing to something are bunk as we both agree the value of what it points to is irrelevant.
    - selestify 5y ago